Speaking of ye olde wishlists, I love looking at them and love adding to them. I visit my "Friends & Favorites" page at amazon frequently, to see what other people are requesting because it often gives me ideas (then I add more to my list, ahem). I've had a couple friends tell me they like looking at my wishlist and shopping for stuff off of it for themselves. Excellent! I totally approve of that, that's part of why I put together a wishlist. And I especially applaud those friends who've decided to "tip" me after they bought a bunch of things from my wishlist for themselves, they then bought me one item. Aw. That's cool.

Not that I'm all about the gifts! I'm all about looking at cool stuff and recommending things.

The Snow White DVD is from all accounts, remarkable. Tons of extras. An amazing disk. I just ordered one from amazon using a gift certificate I received, the deadline made it easy for me to decide what to spend my certificate on.

Other Disney DVDs being retired today: Pinocchio, Mulan, and Tarzan.

(To those just joining us . . . it ain't).

Friday Five:

1. What cologne or perfume do you wear? Right now I've been using "Sugar Cookie" by Demeter, also sometimes Demeter's "Cucumber" or "Creme Brulee." I like a lot of their scents. I guess because I don't generally like anything too perfumy, if you know what I mean. So far the only other colognes I've liked are "Happy" by Clinique (both the men's and women's versions) and H2O's "Mariel." If I go with scents, I go with the Demeter stuff or with essential oils (vanilla, cinnamon, almond or some combination thereof, typically). Or I don't bother with anything.

2. What cologne or perfume do you like best on the opposite sex? I don't really know. Is this sad or what? I mean, I've noticed some guys in my life have smelled particularly good, but I've never flatout asked what cologne or aftershave or laundry detergent (heh) they used. Nor have I rummaged around their bathrooms to investigate.

3. What one smell can you not stomach? Hmm. Strong flowery perfumes that some people put on to excess. Otherwise probably "the usual" type of things like garbage and whatnot.

4. What smell do you like that others might consider weird? Gosh, I don't know. Nothing springs to mind. Well, some people don't get that I love the smell of books. Demeter should come out with that as a scent.

5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? No plans whatsoever. Many of my friends are going to be out of town. I want to go see the new Count of Monte Cristo movie, but otherwise I haven't a clue.

1. What do you have your browser start page set to? I use Opera and have multiple browser windows open each time I start up the program. Windows for my portal page, my livejournal friends page, and DHAK. Thanks to the greatness of Opera, I've Google kinda built into the browser or else I'd probably have it open automagically, too.

2. What are your favorite news sites? I don't visit many, to be honest. I did once upon a time. These days, I usually check startribune.com about once each day or two. They aren't the best news site online, but it's very familiar (as I worked there for two years) and covers some local stuff I might be interested in. I also visit Salon every so often.

3. Favorite search engine: Google. Though for certain things (like searching for song lyrics, quotations, etc.) I sometimes still use Altavista.

4. When did you first get online? I first used Compuserve and Quantum-Link sometime in the early-mid '80s, I'm not sure when. And soon after that, I started calling a whole slew of BBSes. And via some BBSes, I accessed Usenet where I distinctly recall reading SF-Lovers and a Star Trek newsgroup and some other stuff; I rarely posted and I have no idea what account/name I posted under so even if it is available at the big DejaGoogle archive, I haven't been able to find that stuff. I also started reading FIDOnet via BBSes in the mid-late '80s, mostly just the science fiction related discussions. I was on Q-Link for a long time, at some point I got on GEnie and was a regular for a while in the Science Fiction Round Tables there (SFRT). I got full internet access first in 1990 or '91 (I think), put up my first webpage in 1993. I know, I am so old school! Or at least I like to think so.

5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? Not sure. Well, tonight I went out and saw some friends play a show at a local irish bar, with some other friends. Was fun. Saturday and Sunday are still up in the air.

I'm laughing too hard at it, actually. And movie geek that I am, I'm enjoying playing "name where that clip is from." Here are the credits (don't read 'em 'til you watched the film, tho; you'll spoil the fun!).

He directed two episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street ("Fits Like A Glove" and part 1 of "Hostage"), directed episodes of the series Gun and Action; he also directed the films The Ref (one of my favorite Christmas movies), Beautiful Girls (which I liked, too), Monument Ave. (which I heard was good and keep meaning to see), Life, and Blow (both of which I haven't seen yet). Was the nephew of director Jonathan Demme. And, well, he always seemed like a cool guy in interviews.

I know I'd read somewhere he was working on some cool projects with some cool people that I was looking forward to, can't seem to find information now.

Harry and the gang at AICN remember Ted Demme.

I always panic when I misplace my Tivo remote because it's my favorite remote ever and because without it there's no way to run my blessed Tivo. So I think I really need this clear Tivo remote to serve as a backup. Or as my primary remote and my other one will retire to backup service, yes.

I once had a little bitty gopher site (or at least a section of a site), before I had a website. I'm so old skool!

Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't specialize, that maybe then I'd post more often. But then . . . well . . . I'd have to settle on something. That could take years. 'Sides, the TV Picks are specialized, see, spun off out of this little weblog.

Anyway (these are best read in this order - from top to bottom, that is):

These refer to the events of The Fellowship of the Ring:
Aragorn's diary
Legolas' diary
Boromir's diary
Frodo's diary
Samwise's diary
Gandalf's diary
Pippin's diary
Saruman's diary
Gimli's diary
Meriadoc's diary
Ringwraith No. 5's diary
Gollum's diary
Arwen's diary
Elrond's diary
Sauron's diary

These refer to the events of The Two Towers (and possibly also Fellowship):
Aragorn's diary (part two)
Theoden's diary

(that's it, so far; I'll add links here as more are added)

Note: There has been some confusion ever since I first posted these links. I'm not the author of these diaries, but a mere weblogger who linked to the diaries. Cassie Claire wrote the diaries and posted them first to her livejournal. When I first posted links, there weren't any websites that collected the diaries. Because it's important to read the diaries in order, I linked to separate entries in Cassie Claire's livejournal in order. Anyhow. If you want to talk to Cassie Claire or read the diaries as they are posted, visit Cassieclaire's livejournal.

I haven't mentioned my Tivo in a while, but I really should. It's so very very cool. Can't imagine life without it. Yeah, I know I'm spoiled.

Trivia: I have a Tivo antenna topper thingie on my van's antenna. No bumperstickers, nothing else on my van, but that . . .

I love the rumor that the first family wants to adopt a wheaten Scottie to keep Barney (and the rest of the pets) company.

I'd like to thank t/h/e/ A/c/a/d/e/m/y/ Lyn, of course, for the award and for always saying such nice things about my little ol' site. I'd also like to thank everyone who has ever linked to any of my sites and everyone who's sent me donations or gifts or emails in support/thanks over the years. And everyone who takes the time to stop by regularly to read, even when I'm slow with updates. I really appreciate everyone who has stuck with me.

And hey-- go check out the rest of the Medley Medal recipients. A big part of why I'm so honored is 'cuz Lyn picks great sites.

At some point along the path to discovery, the reader confronts his or her reading mortality. There's only so much time. And there are so many great books. And every year more books are published, some of which will be great. Reluctantly, the reader begins to acknowledge the appalling necessity of choosing to read certain good things and not other good things.

and:

That is what keeps readers going, this crazy delusion that someday there will be time.

I gave up on that notion long ago, I'm resigned to the fact that I'll always be behind in general and behind many of my friends, specifically. But that's alright.

Last year I probably read the least of any year ever, though, and that's not right. It's time I got back in the habit. I can't even say most of my reading was done online, as I fell down there, too, and really didn't read many weblogs or journals last year, either.

So a couple of weeks ago, the server that my website lives on at Dreamhost) ended up with a full file system. And I tried to update this site, not realizing that, and then some key configuration files for this little weblog ended up as zero-byte files so things were pretty well and truly hosed.

And me, being a rather lazy and/or busy girl, especially around the holidays . . . well, I just now took the time to fix things.

Here's hoping things are now working. And that the backup files I used for some things aren't too out-of-date.

I think I may be looking for a new place to host this site (and possibly others). Any suggestions? Keep in mind: I'm broke at the moment. And have a lot of websites.